On February 6, 2003, Stella Obasanjo, the then First Lady of Nigeria and spokesperson for the Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation, made the official declaration on “Zero Tolerance to FGM” in Africa during a conference organised by the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices. Since that day, activists, world leaders and communities across the world come together every year to seek an end to FGM.
Just over 10 years ago I took my first steps into activism in this newspaper, on February 6, to tell my story and see if I could help protect my niece and other British girls from FGM, an act of violence I was subjected to at the age of seven. When I spoke to the Evening Standard all those years ago I would have never imagined that I would be writing my column today from my birth city in the Horn of Africa, helping to lead the work to legislate against FGM.
